I realized that I had a handful of not-finished entries lying around this site that I hadn’t posted. And because the original inspiration behind them is long gone, I figured I’d compile them in one Meta-Entry because I’ll probably never get around to finishing them, anyway.

Here we go:

Title: <none>Last modified: Sometime in March…

I’ve spent most* of this weekend deep** in thought. Yes, I’m still questioning the composition of Sarah Palin’s ‘do and yes, I’ve done a sizable (wow, that word doesn’thave an ‘e’! Who knew?) amount of The Daily Show-watching in an attempt to find my answer, but allow me to be realfor a sec, here, ‘k?

Okay, folks, get ready for it-the Big Question to end all Big Questions:

What do I want to do with my life? (meaning, in the next few months. Not, like, until I die. That requires far too much planning).

Here’s a snippet, Gentle Reader, of my Interior Monologue from the past hour-or-so: I like my job. Do I like this city? I kinda don’t like this city. Why don’t I like this city? Is it because I hate the bus? Why do I hate the bus? I’m just being lazy. Do I want to go back to school? Yes, but what do I want to study? Where do I want to live? Do I want to go back part time and find a job somewhere else? Do I have the money to go back to school? How much do I still owe in student loans? I should be at least halfway paid off by now, right? What the hell is my DOE password so I can log in and check? They’re apparently still taking money out of my account. How come I haven’t gotten this stupid Economy Stimulus Payment yet? Why does the IRS hate me? How can I make a living just typing out rants like this? I don’t think that I can. I really like Cheerios. Maybe I’ll eat Cheerios for lunch today.

I’d list out the many Options I’m Considering, but I don’t feel like testing the Word Count limit of a WordPress blog entry.

*a few hours-or-so
**about knee-high

* * * *

Title: Sunshine (Go Away) Last modified: March 29, 2009

I’ve heard this song a hundred-or-more times, and yet, I never noticed these lines:

Working starts to make me wonder where
The fruits of what I do are going…

My last day working here is officially June 5 and from there, there is a sizable possibility that I’ll be “retiring” from the line of work that has sustained me for five years and for which I worked two long, hard years for a Master’s degree. Uh, poorly constructed sentence. Moving on.

I’m past the “why did I work for two years for a career I’m abandoning in another two years?” part. Now I’m at the “what the fuck do I do now?” part. I mean, I know what I’d love to do, but I don’t really know if I actually can.

I also struggle with what I want to do is actually a use of what I’m supposed to be doing. One of the dangers of Facebook is the random Friend Requests from old pals or colleagues who’ve since moved on to other things. I see that So-and-So is now doing Such-and-Such and I immediately go back and view my own profile, through their eyes, to see if what I’m doing now is worth anything compared to what I see as their own lofty achievements. Oh, so you’re married and have a family? You’ve moved away to a far-off city to work with the homeless? That’s nice. I still live in a dorm and I don’t pay rent. After I quit this job, I’ll probably live with my parents for awhile.

This post has no point, mostly because it’s 2:00 and I’m starting to shake from too much coffee and no lunch yet in my belly. I’ll continue it later.

Til next time…

* * * *

Title: You’ll have to follow through, every single day* Last modified: I don’t know, I accidentally deleted it after I copy-and-pasted it. Shit.

If I had to name one thing that all of humankind has in common–one singular goal that everyone on Earth has set for themselves at some point or another, it’d probably be this:

Be a better person.

I’m not going to speculate why this goal seems to be so pervasive (albeit in wildly different incarnations: a 40-something stockbroker’s “better man” is drastically different from that of a starving woman in a war-torn developing country), but I think it’s safe to say that it’s generally universal–right? It’s vague and amorphous enough to be all-encompassing like few other statements (even those made by politicians and other elected officials) can be; though each person might not verbalize it using those exact words, the sentiment is the same.

I want to be a better person.

It’s the epitome of self-centeredness to explain, in great detail, exactly how I want to be a better person, but hell, it’s also the epitome of self-centeredness to create a personal Weblog, eh?

For me, being a better person means keeping promises–both those I make to myself and to other people. When I tell someone (or myself) that I’m going to do something, I need to do it.

It’s both stupidly simple and extraordinarily complex.

I’ve struggled with this for as long as I can remember. When my brother was young enough to want me around to play with him, I constantly promised him that I would, “later.” And, without fail, I would disappoint him. “But you promised!” he’d say, and I’d feel terrible, because I had promised… and didn’t follow through.

And now my brother is 20 years old and lives in Minnesota and all I want to do is play “beanbag”** and “roadway” and “slap-ball” and catch and HORSE with him, all day, every day.

When I first went away to college, I tried desperately hard to keep in touch with my high school and hometown friends. We would stage elaborate group chat sessions on AOL instant messenger and communicate via an online message board (Oh, the days long before Facebook and MySpace and Twitter…). I went through phone cards like nobody’s business (Oh, the days before the pervasive use of cell phones…). I was lonely, and I missed seeing my friends every single day. But after a semester-or-so, I found my own core group of friends that would carry me through the next four years, and my communication with the old gang grew more and more sparse. We’d send e-mails or IMs or call, but I’d never remember to return the messages, always saying “I’ll do it tonight” or “Next weekend, I’ll set aside time to call.”

And now we’re all spread around the country, with our own lives and jobs and families, and I want nothing more than to just hang out with them every weekend, sitting in someone’s basement or kitchen or family room, spending hours talking about nothing, or cruising Lindbergh in someone’s car, looking for something to do.

* “Follow Through” / Gavin DeGraw (Remember him? Oh-so-popular my senior year of college, he seems to have all but disappeared from my musical radar. This is a shame, because Chariot was good–real good.

**”Beanbag” and “Roadway” were two of his favorites: Mushing around my red beanbag chair into some complex, mountainous terrain for his Hot Wheels (“Beanbag”) or carefully driving said Hot Wheels over me, my blankets, and my pillow as I lie very still in bed, or on the floor, or wherever I happened to be at the time he decided I was his personal “Roadway.” “Slap-ball” was an blend of four-square and volleyball and tennis and any game played with one ball and two sides. We played with a massive blue-and-white swirled bouncy ball (which we called “the Earth ball” due to its coloration) in the paved area behind our house–or, if a car was parked back there, the driveway).

I have known Dad for 27 years, minus the nine-ish months before I made my grand entrance when we had not yet been formally introduced in person, and this much is certain to me: to say that he is a tough nut to crack would be the Understatement Of The Century (other phrases in this category: “Lance Armstrong can kinda ride a bike” and “I’d prefer an irate chimpanzee doesn’t remove my eyelids by force”).

I’m not sure anyone has ever really known the guy, even my mom or his sister. The thing is, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I’ve never known a more patient being. Hell, he has to put up with my mom, myself and my brother. Job doesn’t have shit on this man.

* * * *

Title: More Disjointed ThoughtsLast modified: June 24, 2009

I can say with absolutely no sense of hypocrisy or irony that basketball games move waaaaaay toooooo sloooooooow for me and yet, I find some baseball games aren’t long enough for my tastes. I think it’s because of all the damn timeouts in basketball; the last three minutes of the game last anywhere from 3-6 hours. Ugh. No thank you.

It’s been two weeks since I interviewed for the job at SLU. Call me back already, people! In a related rant, I sorta-stalkerishly Google’d a few of the people with whom I interviewed, only to discover some interesting things about my potential direct supervisor. Namely, this quote on a message board (posted under her actual name!):

“anything that takes more than two days will take 6 months if no one is on me about it”

and

“What if I go some where else and they can’t overlook my missed deadlines, flakiness, and forgotten meetings? ” (on the topic of job security)

This both encourages and concerns me, and I can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with the delay in the call-back. Something to think about.

The bubble surrounding the St. Louis Metro area is intense. It’s a near-impenetrable fortress which, when lived within under the right conditions, produces a insular world view not unlike that of a Mennonite community in rural Pennsylvania.

As a college-educated person, I try to be aware of the fact that I spent my formative years beneath this bubble. But every once in awhile, I slip.

Today, as I mindlessly scrolled through Facebook status updates I happened on my friend Jeremy’s: “Congrats to Brett Hull! You deserve every minute of it!” Well, good for you, Jer. I thought, and immediately clicked the “Like” button so that I could needlessly and vapidly record my agreement with this phrase.

I’d just finished reading about Hull’s shoe-in first ballot vote for the Hockey Hall of Fame (and by “read,” I mean I saw the headline). He spent eleven seasons as a Blue – the time during which I was arguably most enamored with the game – and spent the majority of his time here breaking records and being worshipped and adored.

So of course everyone should congratulate him on this achievement, I thought. It didn’t even register that Jeremy is a native of the Dallas, TX-suburbs.

Oh, right, I remembered, too late. Hull was signed by Dallas after those 11 years, went on to lead the Stars to a Stanley Cup victory ten years ago, and now works in their front offices.

Oops.

It’s a funny little story, and beautifully illustrates my point. And yes, I know that each major metropolitan area or sleepy hamlet the world over feels similarly, but I’m not a resident of those places. I’m a St. Louisan, damnit. This is what I know.

I know that fried ravioli are actually “toasted” and filled with meat, not cheese. I can name at least 15 private Catholic high schools in St. Louis County alone. I talk about Ozzie, and Stan, and Mark, and Albert like they were my cousins. And there are things that I wouldn’t know growing up somewhere else, probably.

And, duh, I know my experience here as a middle-class, White, Catholic girl growing up in the county sure aren’t the same as, say, a middle-aged Black man living in the city. But we’re still all in this bubble together, eh?

When I sit on the couch, or on a chair, or on the floor, I immediately look for a pillow to put in my lap. Why? I do not know.

I also did not know this predisposition toward accent pillows was genetic until I came across my dad, sitting in his chair, casually watching TV, a pillow held tight against hisself.

I think my brother does it too. Weird, all of us. So weird.

But that’s not why I’m posting. This is why:
I am currently semi-engaged in a semi-fruitless Job Hunt. I say “semi-engaged” because I’m still not 100% sure what type of job I’d actually do well and I say “semi-fruitless” because I’ve at least had one interview thus far (though I apparently won’t find out one way or the other “for a few weeks” which I find incredibly distressing).

As part of this semi-engagement in Job Hunting, I spend a substantial portion of my day nose-deep in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch classifieds and point-and-clicking higheredjobs.com, studentaffairs.com, monster.com, and yes–even Craigslist.

Oh, Craigslist. How did you come to be one of the focal points of my existence? Perhaps it began when someone began sending me links to particularly interesting Missed Connections, or when a friend jokingly suggested I look for a Casual Encounter. Perhaps it began when I decided that I wanted to move back to St. Louis, so I hit up the Apts/Housing page with gusto. Regardless, I am now reluctant to admit that the majority of my online browsing is on this site. Heaven help me, I’m now able to pick out some Repeat Posters in, well, all of these categories…and more.

But it’s not been all dick shots (NEVER click on any kind of personal ad that has a picture attached) and $50 Rooms-for-Rent (I’ve seen the same “apartment” listed in several different areas of the city, with different features, for different prices). Nay, Gentle Reader, there are some hypothetically more useful uses.

“Jobs” and “Gigs” has given me a few solid leads. I mean, nothing that I’ve actually, you know, followed up on… (irrelevance!). Anyway, a few months ago, I came across an ad wanting St. Louis Cardinals bloggers. “Hey!” I thought. “I like to blog, and I like the Cardinals! What could possibly be un-right about this arrangement?”

But, as I thought more about it, I realized that my Cardinals knowledge is less encyclopaedic and more trivial. I’m less play-by-play and more color commentary. My input would be highly niche, less–oh–we’ll call it “mainstream,” because “readable” makes me feel shittily. While some might enjoy reading what I have to say, I’d venture a guess that most…wouldn’t. Your typical, sports-news-reading Business Guy, sipping his crappy Office Coffee and working on his standard Office Computer would hastily discard my writings in favor of something more satisfying. Lesser bloggers might now construct a simile comparing this to their failed romantic liaisons, but I’d like to think I’m above that. Er. Ahem.

Aaaanyway, here are some thoughts that have been stewing in my brain for awhile, and these are the types of musings that I’d be likely to produce, had the skies parted to reveal dudes riding horses and someone actually wanted me to write about my Cards–unedited, in its rawest form (so please forgive its all-over-the-place tangents and overall quality):

As the kind of person who constantly deconstructs the goings-on around her and imagines how they would be written into your standard television pilot and/or independent film, I find Cardinals shortstop-come-third baseman Khalil Greene to be absolutely fascinating. I admit that my interest pre- Meltdown (hush, now, everyone else was thinking it) was confined strictly to his hair. Namely, it’s apparent texture: does it really grow like that, angrily poking down from his hat at perfect straight angles as he runs the bases? Does he straighten it in some sort of metrosexual pre-game ritual? Is that his natural color? Or does it break off in shards if you touch it because it’s been bleached near-to-death?

At the beginning of this season, I was living in Tulsa, and admittedly, it took a bit more effort to keep up with my beloved Home Team. By May, I was engrossed in my move back to St. Louis, land that I love, and sort of drifted away from my daily Cardinals Watch.

So when I made my triumphant return to the 314, I was surprised to read that the DL on which Greene’s name appeared was the MLB Disabled List (and not a nod to what I assumed were his metro- tendencies) and that he’d been taken out of commission due to anxiety-related performance issues (Oh…that sounded…bad). I was immediately re-intrigued, because this sort of shit just doesn’t go down in the Major Leagues, at least, not publically.

In the realm of cinema, the mental (and physical) anguish of the professional athlete is All Teh Rage. From Will Ferrell’s overly cartoonized Ricky Bobby to James Caan’s gnash-your-teeth-and-wail-with-grief portrayal of Brian Piccolo, audiences absolutely flock to see this drama portrayed on-screen. See, we’ve been assuming (some would say “with hope”) that these things are true (Well, Piccolo’s story was… perhaps that was a bad example), but the hush-hush, let’s keep the Image mentality of pro sports only lets the casual spectator peer so deep into this freaky little world.

Side note: Did I mention that there was a brief period when I wanted to go into sports psychology? Worth mentioning now.

So the fact that the media was tossing around the term Social Anxiety Disorder in reference to Greene was amazing to me becaaaaaaause…

My Dad and I have been talking for quite some time about the sissification of Major League Baseball. Players are added to the Disabled List for itty-bitty boo-boos left and right, almost without shame (while, I might add, NHL’ers receive stitches and IV infusions during shift changes and hop back out onto the ice ten minutes later). So does this decidedly un-physical explanation for a player’s absence mean that it’s becoming more acceptable to take oneself out of commission for a spell?

becaaaaaaaause

I have always secretly suspected that some of these miscellaneous “injuries” were covers for other non-physical “issues.” Really, dude? You have a blister on your non-throwing hand so you need 15 days to recover? Riiiiiiight. This doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re batting .103 does it? You make sure that blister has plenty of time to heal, pal. Take all the time you need.

What I’m trying to long-windedly say is this: What I assume was once pretty taboo has been plastered all over the sports pages, hyperlinked all over the internet, and spoken (sometime tentatively, I feel) all across the airwaves.

And if Greene’s brief disappearance wasn’t enough to lure out the type of fans who are solely drawn to the Human Interest story, his comeback should have them crashing in waves along Clark Street downtown: three games in, and a home run in each. Seen laughing and smiling in the dugout. Giving heartfelt radio interviews. I mean, c’mon. They’re shoveling these images in faster than the press can feed it to them!

In just a few days, what was once a moderately-interesting character (word choice intentional) on whom Tony LaRussa pinned hopes in the mid-to-upper range (clean up hitter? Shortstop with a Big Bat?) has surely become a mini-sensation among the female (and more than a few male) fans.

The attention he must be receiving–both in front of and behind the scenes–must be intense. He is the Tragic Hero of our cinematic fantasies in the flesh. Oh, and if this wounded-bird-with-a-kick-ass-comeback story wasn’t enough, please do yourself a favor and Wikipedia him. And please pay especial attention to the final paragraph. I’ll wait here while you do so.

waitingwaitingwaitingwaiting.

So…yeah! Baha’i? Hip-hop lyrics? The ladies must be literally magnetized to this guy.

I don’t know. That just popped into my head. I could really care less, honestly.

* * *

Some disjointed thoughts:

USA’s Royal Pains (or is that supposed to be quotation mark’d?) is proving to be a decent, watch-able television program–whomever the network is paying to churn out Original Series is worth the money.

The Hangover (almost certain the italicization here is correct) was a bit more of a disappointment. Seems the writers were reaching for an ad-libbed dynamic among the actors a la Judd Apatow movies and just missed the mark. The premise was almost foolproof, but they wrote beyond their reach. Or maybe they should have just cast different actors; I don’t know.

See? This is what’s beautiful about blogging. Self-righteous pretense-ary is not only rewarded, but encouraged. No wonder I’m an addict.

* * *

Yeah, I’m still jobless. I’ve got an interview next week for a job. And that’s nice. But all I’m looking for right now is some form of income that I can show a potential landlord so I can get my own place once again. Living at home with my parents is completely fine, but I’ve grown accustomed to being on my own: making my own meals, drinking my own liquor, passing out on my own floor, bringing home my own male visitors, drunkenly burning my own curtains whilst playing with matches. Having to chip in for beer is just crimping my style, yo. For realz.

Uh, or not.

* * *

I think I fried my flash drive, but I’m terrified to test it out because my most updated resumes and cover letter, including all of my writing samples, is saved on it. I know, I know. I should have saved them elsewhere. I should have done a lot of things. I wish I was a baller, I wish I was taller…